Monday, March 31, 2014

Play Ball!

The Vernal Equionox has passed, but its not REALLY
Spring until Opening Day. And so today there’s a singing bluebird on one shoulder,
a Louisville Slugger on the other and the world is once again running in
greased grooves.

Baseball is here again. We can relax.

Because baseball is all about relaxation. An
Englishman once remarked that to endure the top of a 7th inning is to
understand all eternity – this from a country that worships Cricket, where a
game can easily last for three days.

On the field after running a Giant Race 5K.

But you know what? Let ‘em whine. Today I am in love
with all the world. My teams are resplendent, untarnished, invincible. By the
All-Star break they’ll be broken down, indicted, and able to strike out at will
– but here, poised on the cusp of the season, they are immaculate, inviolate.

I’m feeling so good I’m not even going to get on other
sports.

Football, I could point out (if I felt like it), has a season that is
less than 1/10th as long as baseball.

Hockey and Soccer have maximum action
with minimal scoring. Endless seemingly purposeless motion. “All hat and no cattle” as my
rodeo friends say (And don’t even get me started on that “sport”).

Now
Basketball is all action and all scoring, but also all traveling.
Count the steps on any drive for the basket and see how quickly you run out of
fingers.

Minor league ball, like the San Jose Giants, has its
own unique charms. (And excellent BBQ.)

Now the thing about Hockey and Soccer and Tennis is
that something significant could happen at anytime, so you have to pay
attention.

Football you can kick back with because there is – according to a classic stopwatch experiment – just about 4 minutes of action in a 3 and a 1/2 hour
‘game’.

Same with baseball. There is somewhere 30 seconds and a minute between
pitches, so sit back and relax. Make a sandwich. Mow the lawn. Do your taxes.
Call your Congressman. No hurry.

After I sent this photo to my Mom,
she replied that she would be
watching her grocery store shelves.
Moms - gotta love 'em.

George Will once rebutted the notion that baseball was
boring by saying: "But baseball IS action-packed! There is barely enough
time to think about everything you need to think about before the next pitch is
thrown."

In the Freaky Tiki we watch probably 100 baseball
games a year. But we’re never bored. We’ve learned. Now we each have crafts to
do inbetween pitches (and a quick finger on the 'mute' button for the
commercials).

Yeah, I caught a game ball once.
Gave it to my Gamer Babe, of course.

Indeed, as the season wears on and our teams tank and
flounder and sputter and cry like a little girl the crafts become more and more
important. Admiral Karen is an expert knitter and I sculpt in Legos. We get
absorbed in our projects and raise our eyes only when the pitch is about to be
thrown.

That’s of course at home where you have the sonorous
tones of the announcers to tell you when something may be about to actually
‘happen’.

When we go to the ballpark to see our teams play in person we don’t
have that privilege. Indeed, we don’t even have our crafts. What we do, to get
us through the eternity of that 7th inning, is to

just keep eating ballpark food like someone is
about to take it away from us.

Now, what were my problems again?

Winter is over. Baseball is here – and the kimchi
stench of the garlic fries is in the air. Relax.

Buy my DVD!

About Angus

angusmcmahan@gmail.com

(831) 431-0636

Angus is a carbon-based, bipedal, ape-descended life form who has evolved his thumb-laden hands into two specialties: Writing stuff, and whapping on things in a rhythmical manner.

The rest of his hairy arms are now good at swimming. His legs have been running and pedaling bicycles for decades. And his enormous cranium seems to be engaged mostly in getting sunburned, playing video games, and yelling at the Giants on his TV.